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Timeshare Mogul, Who Warned Of Layoffs If Obama Won, Says No Republican Will Win For 50 Years

Florida businessman David Siegel, who was briefly a billionaire in 2007, made news last month when he sent a letter to Westgate Resorts employees outlining all the reasons they shouldn’t vote for Obama. In the letter, he suggested he might retire to the Caribbean and get out of business altogether.

Yesterday, he told Business Week that he was not yet retiring and instead had given his employees a 5% raise to help them deal with Obama economics.

I spoke to Siegel, who is in Scottsdale, Arizona for a corporate retreat with his top executives, this afternoon about that raise, the election, the future of the Republican Party and the outlook for business. Not surprisingly, he was outspoken and painted a dismal picture of the country. Here are some of the comments he made to me.

On Obama’s Victory And Future Of Republican Party

I came out to Scottsdale planning to celebrate Romney’s election. I thought he’d be elected. I didn’t count on all the people who voted for Obama. I guess I live in a different world. We’re totally not in touch with reality. After this election, I think it will be 50 years before a Republican will be elected to the Presidency. It’s going to get more planted to the Democrtats as each year goes by. There will be more Latinos, more blacks, more people on welfare, more on food stamps, more on unemployment – and they all vote for Democrats.

What (Republican) in their right mind would go through all that expense and sacrifice if they know they aren’t going to be elected? I don’t see us having another Republican president for years to come. It’s mind boggling. I am either totally in the dark, or people don’t really care about America becoming great again. We’re playing a status quo battle and people don’t want any changes. If you are on food stamps, you don’t want any changes.

On The Voters Who Elected Obama

There are two reasons students, who aren’t working, voted for him. He ended the wars, so they don’t want to be drafted and they are hoping that with the stroke of his pen he will lower student loans or help lower the interest they are paying. Why would they vote for him other than those two reasons? Women voted for him because of birth control and abortions. No one who voted for him cared about the economy. They didn’t care about getting the country great again, getting respect in the world.

Business and workers are not in the majority anymore. It’s the people on food stamps, on welfare, students, who aren’t even working. These are the people voting, anyone on the government’s take. I see (Obama) making all illegal aliens citizens with a presidential directive and that will be another 12 million for his voting bloc. This is all about getting re-elected. I think you probably heard it from me first. In four years, the candidate who will be running will be Michelle Obama. She will be the next president. I don’t think he wants to give up the power.

On His Future Plans

A week before the election I had a meeting with my top executives and said next year, I want to double our sales. Figure out how to do it. Now in 2 hours I am having meeting with them and I’ll tell them I would still like to double sales, but they should figure out how to do it without taking a risk. If Romney had been elected, I’d be willing to take a risk and now I am not and that is the difference between who got elected and not elected.

I am not going to let it affect my thinking or my resolve to make my company better but here is the difference in a nut shell. I planned this retreat several weeks ago so we could get all my executives together and we could plan to start expand and grow the company. That means borrowing money, putting myself on the line again. I am not going to do that now. I am not going to take the risk. I still want to do whatever I can to expand the company but without taking any risk. I am now not thinking of construction, acquiring new companies, or going into debt….and every successful business is willing to take a risk and now businesses are not going to take a risk. Wall Street reacted to the news with big drop. It’s going to be gridlock, deadlock, do-nothing, verge of financial collapse, for country. We’ll be on that so-called cliff for the next four years. T he majority of people don’t care. And in four years whoever is the Democratic candidate will be elected again…and again and again until we’re a third world country.

On His Decision To Give Employees 5% Raises

My employees are like my children. They’ve been suffering over the last four years and now are suffering even more because of Obamacare and higher interest rates. I needed to give them something to help them out and as a company we’re doing great. From profitability standpoint, we had our best year in our history and I wanted to ease the burden for them. I can’t say it will happen again next year.

There is no American dream anymore. People are not going to take the chance (and start businesses); it is too risky. What Obama can do to overcome that is ease up Credit, which is the life source of every business. If he does that, he can avert a calamity, but four more years of the same will be terrible. It will be a disaster.

I am going to do everything I can to stay successful but as I said a few months ago or few weeks ago, if it hurts too much and I am not enjoying it and have too many obstacles, I am going to retire and live out the rest of my life happy. Actually, I wouldn’t say happy. I hope I wake up and everything is wonderful and maybe he’ll see the light, and I’ll be pleasantly surprised and he can convert me.

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“Funny that this guy insinuates that the only people who vote democratic are people on welfare and unemployed, when the states the voted for Obama are the most prosperous in the nation and have the lowest unemployment rates. The republicans will not get elected again, not because everyone is just looking for a handout, but because the people aren’t buying their scare tactics anymore and there are not enough religious fundamentalists out who vote on purely social issues.

Carl Rowe cannot assemble together 51% of the vote from the wealthy, anti-abortionists, racists, Regan reminiscers, and NRA folks. The normal middle class working people with a brain out number these democraphics. We know that when Clinton left office the budget was balanced & the economy was great, then Bush de-regulated everything, gave his Coonies the highest tax cut ever, and the economy went to Pot, mainly because the de-regulated banks started giving mortgages to anyone who would sign on the dotted line — causing a huge bubble.

Also, why would I vote for a party that doesn’t have anything to offer. Their only plan was to lower taxes, and increase spending on defense, how is that going to balance the budget, really? People voted for Obama even though he isn’t perfect, because they trust more that he wants what is best for 100% of the county and not just the 1%, while Romeny says that he doesn’t even care about 47% of the people. No one wants to be on food stamps, why would anyoney want to be that poor, they want to work for a living wage.Yet so many people are working 40 hrs a week, but at slave wages, because unions have become so weak, we are going backwards to the early 1900 before that advent of livable wages, health insurance, and pensions. Now these benefits are disappearing and so is the middle class that came along with them.

No one is against succuessful business or people getting rich, but the system is increasing stacked so that only a limited number of people can get rich while most are stuck at the bottom. This is due to the increase in francises and mega corporations merging into one another. Instead of local banks and supermarkets there are just a few national entities, so all that profit goes to just a few, while their employees work for $10 and hour. Their employees barely get buy so they don’t spend money and when they do its is a mega retailers with the cheapest price. Further strenghthening the cycle of a handful very large business profiting.

It reminds me of medevial serfdom. A king collects all the wealth, while his serfs work for him and buy everything from his merchants, and live a subsistance life. Nothing in Romney’s plan seemed to fix this. It was more trickle down economics, which doesn’t work. The rich don’t pay their employees more when they make more, the invest it on expanding and hiring more people at min wage. They only care about cutting the bottom line every quarter to keep investors happy and make the stock interest in the company go up. There is no motivation for trickle down, besides benevolence, for those at the top to pay their employees more or give them more benefits, that is why unions are so important. Romney is against unions, and sees them as socialistic and kiilling free enterprise, but all they really do is level the playing field. We have unions to thank for many of the little luxuries we enjoy in life now such has holidays off and a 5 day work week.

Just so no republican accusses me of being a lazy person on food stamps, I will point out the I have a well paying job, used to work two jobs up until recently so I could buy a house and am well in the 53%. So are all of my friends…and we all voted democratic, we are all young and will continue to vote democratic.

The real lazy people in my mind are the 1% who just make money off the the millions they inherited in the bank opr off of various stocks and hedge funding trading tactics that screw a bunch of other investors. The lehman brother and bernie madoffs of the world hording all the wealth. These are the people who have never actually earned money with their hands and through real work, they just sit back and collect dividens and interest from their yachets and complain when they have to pay more in taxes on the free money they scammed from people! When the shit hits the fan the cash out their stocks and write themselves a multi-million dollar severence check, then claim bankruptcy and screw their debtors. How many times has Donald Trump pulled the bankruptcy card?

Do you think threathing to not expand your business if Obama get elected who scare us in to voting for Romney not to Upset you… Please, if you don’t want to take risk, im sure some other business person will be more that happy to step in your place and take that business for you. I already got some stock at a cheap price wednesday morning do to the litte temper tantrum on wall street!

Can I just say something, as someone whose the young generation of investor, and thinks Wall Street is America´s greatest engine system, Im still going to take risk a lot of young people will do that. These old white males have a different mindset thats why they are scared of the new way of life, they see the demographics changing, and they have to adapt.

They do not give us young generation credit for anything, yet they have us to thank for Internet, Twitter, Facebook this is the new age and they have to come in terms with it, we vote Democratic but we also understand how to create and expand business and be successful, and we do create new highly skilled workplaces. I am sick and tired of old rich white males complaining about Obama´s America, just because some taxes might go up like they were in the Clinton era, as Warren Buffett said you invest to make money despite a tiny increase in taxes.

David Siegel does not speak for the business community, he speaks for himself and his politics, none of them which are based in reality.

If people like yourself keep making this all about how evil those of us who care about other people are, you will find that at some point someone’s honor will insist that they take your stuff, but it’s not your stuff they would be seeking, it’s self respect. Our honor is important to all of us, and that is why people like you get to survive such offensive attitudes to begin with.

You want to insist that there be masses of people who are living desperately on the edge, and then want us to believe your comfortable concerns based on the fear they might get some of your stuff is what matters. Well no one can help you with that, it’s not going to happen, the universe is not put together that way.

When your baby is deathly sick, when your spouse is hungry, when your pride is gone, when you know you’re dying soon, honor is lost, hope gone, then your concern for the opinions of your “betters” turns to pondering what can you take from them.

You could ease up a bit, emulate the Jesus guy, and help ensure that the guy down the block has ajob, that his chioldren have a future and his wife has food.

You may even find that it feels good to help your neighbor avoid the trauma that could otherwise lead him to accidentally take out half the block when he attempts to take his house with him… or you could safely feel good about your supperior skill at selfish survival, making sure he is well enough to consider his neighbors first.

Either way, there are so many ways that we see your compatriots, and yourself, calling the kettle black.

If you disparage the majority of this nation, it is this nation you disparage. Wake up, smell the coffee, join in the misery that is currently the real USA.

Honor is also why people keep wanting jobs when they should be calling for education, health care, food, money, and the blood of sociopathic liars and kleptocrats.

(I did not vote for Obama, who I consider to be more similar to Romney than any other politician in the history of all the world. I voted for Jill Stein, who stands for investments that will save the economy, the climate, lack of jobs, and the crash of education, health, wealth, and poverty of the majority of the people, who are the nation. I am a Green Party diehard, but i feel I can speak for those who you disparage for having had to grow beyond your current – apparent – set of beliefs, because I know so many, and – apparently – as compared to you, I am in the same boat. I just disagree on how to steer, not where we’re going, or why this country IS great and how it can remain so.)

I have never seen better evidence than this article that some people are not aware of the connection between the stength, financial soundness, and physical health of a nation, and that of it’s citizens.

It’s as if there is a difference between what is good for the majority and what is good for the nation.

A nation is what a mess of people do together, no more, no less. If they want stuff, need things, vote for their own selfish interests, because they have been reduced to being dependants of absent parents, then they must act, or vote, in self defense to preserve the strength of the nation.

You say that the dependants are the majority, as if you knew from your intimate contact with the bottom rank of our culture how much the majority would rather not have a job. If one tenth of this nation actually agreed with me how lame it is to work solely for the profits of another, at the minimum he can possibly pay, you’d be singing a very different tune.

Fact is that there ARE NO JOBS! precisely because of people with your attitude who think a nation, much less a democracy, is something other than citizens.

Business was never IN the majority, and workers ARE still in the majority, and will remain so, independant of your ability to define them as not workers just because they don’t currently have a job. Unless you’re independantly wealthy, not working is more work than work, particularly if you have children.

The American dream is dead not because we won’t take the risks, but because the dream has been killed with risks that outweigh the return on efforts and banks that don’t have any money to lend despite having been given historically unprecedented amounts of money (amounts that did not even exist in one “place” until it was “minted” by being put in the accounts of bankers).

We tied up all the money in the world (almost) then made a mess more, and it’s still tight. Sure interest rates are low, but no one can get a loan, so money remains tight, and mostly off shore.

I don’t know how you can blame the workers for the fact that it was the banks that got bailed out, not those whose homes are now of less value than the mortgage they had half paid off after decades of work.

No money in the hands of consumers, no one hiring because there is no demand, and no one is lending to those willing to take the risk and inject some money into circulation anyway. How is this the unemployed workers’ fault?

How is this too complex for you?

All y’all keep this up like this and see how quickly the majority elects those who talk about how the majority are some imaginary dragon that likes to have tea with unicorns and eat leaprechauns, and worthy of only disdain anyways, and if you’re lucky you’ll learn these things:

1) Respect; people listen to those who respect thier right to ask, to question even, and to think for themselves. One the big foibles of most humans is they have a hard time respecting the view of someone too clueless to repect their own view. (see Dning Kruger Effect, or how the less one knows the more one thinks one knows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect)

2) People prefer to have pride, to contribute to their society, and to have enough money to pay the mortgage AND buy food.

There are many in my life who have been forced to abandon the illusion that laziness is the problem by having to work two or three jobs and still watching their costs rise while their family’s health dives. Not to mention those who are still unemployed after their unemployment runs out and don’t have any skills currently in demand. The reason Romney lost is because the Republican party has caused too many republican voters to lose their jobs and have something “better” to do than vote. It’s not even political, having been deprived of their welfare and or jobs, many former republican voters have found themselves withpout enough inflated pride to continue looking down on the majority they now realize they are a part of.

You can’t keep putting into place legislation and deregulation that gets your voters fired, without eventually getting fired, or getting your ideologic inheritors fired.

Unfortunately, if people like yourself learn these things well and quickly enough, and then adapt the message but not the meaning, we will continue to spend our real wealth on cheap trinkets that can be, and will be, sold for money, until the nation is no more because everyone came to see it was time to quit it or die. This is not unfortunate because it leads to the quickest possible end to “our” empire, but because it kills the most people, especially the most loyal and trusting people.

Fact is, our culture, as people like yourself often imagine it, never did, and never will, exist. A nation and it’s people are essentially the same thing whether a monarchy, republic, democracy, socialism, or anarchy. If the demographics and opinions change, so does the country.

If a country changes and it’s government does not, it is not democracy.

If we are educated, healthy, wealthy, and wise, we are a great nation. When we become impoverished, stupid, misdirected, greedy, divided, and unable to understand real value, we become not so great.

It has been repeatedly shown that things like education and health care for workers have no equal in providing returns on investment by prodigious amplification of the tax base. It has been repeatedly shown that being tight with money alone can cause economic collapse, much less tightening the supply after a tight supply has made a collapse.

Head start programs return money in taxes and save it in social programs, prisons, and the like. Not counting social good, and personal well being, the headstart program profits the government kitty 13 dollars for every dollar spent. Similarly, the original GI Bill returned 7 dollars to the coffers of the US Government for every dollar we spent.

The US right wing has run the two largest and most irresponsible experiments on the entire real world and it’s economy, in the entire world and it’s history, for decades, and the results are now in. To continue down the fossil fuel road, and the disaster capitalism road with it’s attendant tinkled on economy and austerity and historically unequalled inequality, now that they have proven fatally disasterous, repeatedly, is not just simple folly, it is a sociopathic suicide pact.

The theories and the models were stupendously unable to predict how dire the consequences would be, so the only thing for sure is that the results will probably continue to be surprisingly nasty.

We voted for Obama because he actually knows how to do a tiny little bit more than fail miserably to be convincing when he says he knows how to do anything but ship jobs and capital to China.

If we create more flow in the economy by investing in people you would dismiss as other than, or somehow opposed to, your country, then we can create the consumer demand that is the actual health of an economy.

No, you want an economy without workers or consumers, food without growers, armies without soldiers, patriotism without participation or reciprocation, and freedom for free.

Point being, robots are property, not consumers of property. Under the current economic paradigm, robots don’t make the economy work for people, they just displace people from the economy. Critically, for our purposes here, robots don’t buy consumer goods.

What made this nation great was a shared sense of purpose, sacrafice, and profit. You seem to want to live in a nation of people stupid enough to continue to provide the sacrafices to achieve the purposes of others, all the while being impoverished as a result.

What we really need is a huge investment in human capital. Until we have a sane 21st century education policy, until everyone can learn and be accredited for whatever they can qualify to do, we will continue to be weaker.

Your concern for a stronger US is composed of what has weakened us. It is that of those who advocate everyone for themselves when winning, and lament others’ indifference when losing.

I could go on and on, apparently, but I’ll never be sure I’ve given you pause to think that maybe those young people have a pretty good idea exactly what is good for us, and a better idea than you of what their world will look like long after you are gone, and that in this light they are well aware that one of the things that can most quickly make it all go to pieces as fast as possible is another war right now, and continuing to freeze a huge proportion of their entire generation’s assests as well.

No, they are selfish because they don’t understand your selfless need to have them die just to raise the price of oil and weaken the country they so obviously hate (as if reinstating the draft is even a remote possibility – war just means more jobs to the youth, and relatively safe ones at that, playing video games; still they want to avoid what would stop the empire cold, crash the economy, and finish off the climate that was comfortable for humans).

Women might deserve sane health care and a right to control what happens inside their bodies, but they voted for Obama because they need decent jobs.

Even if it’s completely wrong, not voting for Romney because you need a job is not selfish, it’s not unpatriotic, it’s a concern for your country and it’s future.

People on the bottom would be better off taking your stuff, but they don’t want it. Despite the selfishness and economic ruin that has been visted upon us by looney right wingnut economic and political theories over the last few decades, crime has gone down. Why? because people are naturally good, hard working, patriotic, spiritual, and understand the real value of real things like honor.

what a moron. He doesn’t understand business nor taxation. If his tax rates are higher, he has an incentive to reinvest in his company, lowering his tax exposure and his tax burden. Guess what, that’s his decision, and he decides where to put his money. The higher the tax rate, the greater the incentive. Now, what mature business seeks to double sales in one year? This guy is an adolescent of a CEO. Maybe he understands his niche, but he doesn’t understand how various tax rates affect businesses. Imagine what higher cap gains would affect him. If he owns any of those timeshares, his tax burden would go DOWN under higher cap gains, as his depreciation is credited at the cap gains rate. Higher top marginal income tax rates may make him defer taking profits personally, but that avails his firm to those same monies to invest, pay bonuses, buy new properties, improve them… ALL DEDUCTIBLE. This guy is like a crazy man who refuses to take his medicine, that will make him a higher functioning person with it.

Seriously? The rich in America and in the world seem to be far removed from reality. They see things totally different and in order to keep their “life style” they have to live that way. If at any time, they were to walk the streets where the people are homeless, need jobs (that the rich LOVE to outsource because it’s cheaper for them and more money in their pockets, NOT AMERICA’s), they might see what this world is really like instead of their Penthouse Suites and their mansions in the Hamptons! There is only ONE rich person in America that I admire and think knows what it’s all about and that is Warren Buffett. He’s the only person of wealth that seems to understand that the reason he is where he is, is because of those people who work for him, and whom he supports and respects, not like some rich individuals who think they are God’s gift to humanity (can you say trump this?) Just my view from the trenches since I’m not one of the elitist snobs who think they are all that because they have more money. God help us when we realize that it’s all a bunch of ones and zeros in a super computer somewhere and can all go away when the power is cut off.